Ghana News Headlines

The drama started after 09:00 local time (17:00 GMT) when the
gunman, also a student, arrived late, armed with a shotgun, at the
school in the small town in California's central valley.

Students and staff telephoned police, but before officers
could arrive, the suspect had shot at two people in a class in the
science block. One shot missed its target.

The teacher, who had been grazed by a pellet, then intervened.

He and another school official who entered the classroom are reported
by US media to have warned the suspect that there would be no shooting
in his class - at which point the gunman put down his weapon and police
officers arrested him.

"They talked him into putting that shotgun down. He in fact
told the teacher, `I don't want to shoot you,' and named the person that
he wanted to shoot," Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said.

"The heroics of these two people goes without saying. They
could have just as easily... tried to get out of the classroom and left
students, and they didn't," he added. "

Parents of pupils said the suspect had been suspended last year from the school 120 miles (190km) north of Los Angeles.

Deputies from the local sheriff''s office and town officials
conducted a search of the school and its grounds to make sure no-one
else was involved and all other students were safe.

The shooting comes four weeks after a gunman killed 26 pupils and staff at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

That incident has provoked a nationwide debate about gun laws
in the US. Vice-President Joe Biden has said his task force on gun
control will make its recommendations to President Barack Obama as early
as Tuesday.

Taft Union High School will be closed for classes on Friday, but will have counsellors on campus to talk to worried students.

Former pupils of the school include the distinguished US Air
Force pilot, General Gordon Graham, the American football player Russell
Letlow and the television actress Jeanne Cooper. - BBC